Instant DIY:
Instagram Photo Strip: 1. Save all your photos into a folder (have at least 16 pictures) 2. Hit Command-A to select all and click print. 3. In your printer settings, make sure it is in landscape mode. Print 16 per page with no border. 4. Print!
Being a work-at-home mother is one of the best/worst/harderst/rewarding thing that could have ever happened to me.
I get to spend time working on projects that I love, while knowing I am my kids best caregiver. Plus, I’ve recently started to show other work-at-home mothers how to make working from home a real option for them. While everybody thinks its sunshine and rainbows its is a hard job by this one simple fact… the fact that I need to constantly stave off distractions! There are many. Trust me.
You see when you’re working in an office, it is easy to stay focused because pretty much everyone else is working, plus you have a boss who keeps an eye on you.
But when you’re working at home, you have folks listening to music, watching television, needing something from you and you are your own boss.
How do you stay focused and avoid distractions? First by identifying them. Yes, learn what are your major distractions and then, deal with them.
So, here are the top 5 distractions that a work-at-home mom faces along with handy ‘stay focused’ tips to get you all organized and productive:
Yes, email unfortunately does get in our way while we work. Checking email every 30 minutes or even hourly is NOT good for productivity and getting things done. Instead, schedule 2-3 time slots every day and keep them exclusively for checking and replying to emails and if possible, shift to Gmail, it has a great suite of apps that are handy for any business.
Stay Focused: Keep email reading and replying for mornings after you’ve done your 1st session of work, noon before you take your first break for lunch and night, before you shut down for the day.
Ahh, we all love tweeting and Facebooking, pinning and stumbling. And yes, it is important too. You get to network and connect with others, learn what’s happening online and give your mind a rest too. However, when you get sucked into your Twitter stream or tangled up in pinboards, it is time to step back and take a look at how to make social media really work for you.
Stay Focused: Like email, schedule time for networking. Automate updates for your business or blog so that you don’t have to share them real-time. Applications like, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite can really simplify that for you.
We work at home because we want to be with our little ones. However, sometimes the little ones can be big sources of distraction. “Mommy, I need {juice/milk/cookies/Buzz Lightyear!}”, often pull me away from my desk and make me lose my focus and flow. Please tell me I’m not alone!
Stay Focused: Schedule heavy-duty work activities for times when either your kids are away at school, asleep or with someone to watch them and do the need fulfillment. I now shut off the laptop when my daughter comes home from preschool or wakes from her nap. If I have to keep it on, I only do things that don’t require a LOT of focus – social networking or email.
Working at home means we get caught up in cleaning, decluttering, dishwashing, laundry, cooking, cleaning, decluttering. Yeah, you get it. Household chores are important and yes, they need to be done. But not when you’re supposed to be working. Schedule times and days to tackle household chores. You can always focus on the harder you work one day you can hire help to clean your home 😉
Stay Focused: Set working hours. Don’t think about the load of laundry when you’re working on a project.
Finally, it is YOU who can be quite the distraction to yourself and your work. Unfortunately, we ourselves can end up distracting ourselves. However, handling this one is easy. If you take action everyday to organize and stay focused, chances are you’ll end up doing MUCH more with your day as a work-at-home mother.
Stay Focused: Use the tips and ideas in this post to create a schedule that works for your lifestyle and personality.The night before set up a list of the 6 most important things to do, keep to the list! You’ll see yourself making progress everyday.
How do you stay on top of distractions as a work-at-home mom?
Hello Gals!
Here is the list of the items that will be provided for you in class. The full kit is $35 for the class. If you already have the materials then it is just a $5 sit-in fee.
Here is the list:
Tools: needle nose pliers, round nose pliers and side cutters
Bead Board
Beading String
Crimp Beads
Finding (jump rings, clasps, eye pins, end pins, hook earrings)
Memory Wire
Chain
Assorted Beads
Here they are wearing their shirts!
I love just letting my son’s creativity loose. Usually its an all day, all consuming thing. Posted here is the morning round. I’m going to assume it will be completely different by tonight!
Due to SuperStorm Sandy, Halloween has been postponed in NJ. Governor asked that Halloween be conducted Monday Nov 5th. Keep kids safe from trick or treating in the dark from power failure and safe from downed power lines. We decided to prep early in case I messed up this part of the Costume.
My son decided to go as Spock. Why? I dunno but he’s really super excited about it. He decided not to use the really crappy hair/ear head cap that was included. He instead said that his own ear were pointed enough and he was going to let his hair grown out to get a Spock hair cut. After two months of growing out his hair, I hacked into it today. I know NOTHING of cutting hair, and thankfully after Halloween I’ll be buzzing it off.
Here’s my lil Spock!
Feeling particularly crafty today and decided to make shirts for my kiddos.
This post is about the shirts and making them. I’ll make a later post on how to make your own iron on images, using your own computer and printer.
First is finding black shirts that fit my kids. 
When I found out I was pregnant I found this iron on on sale. Been holding on to it ever since waiting to have the shirts and the inclination to make them.
First wash your shirts. When ironing on its best if your shirt is stretched out to avoid bumps and uneven adhesion of the transfers. Then using a ruler, line up the iron-on to make sure it’s on the chest and not lopsided.
With shirts with more than 50% cotton , set your iron to wool setting. Let it get hot then in a circular motion iron on the transfer with consistent pressure for about 1 minute.
Pick and edge and slowly peel of, if you see that an area has not adhere just drop the clean paper back over and iron again with pressure.
Once you pull it off, you’re done! When washing these shirts turn them inside out and in cold water only. Line dry.
Here is the set!
Now to plan a photoshot with my boys!
It’s November in our household that means: ready, set…write your heart out! For the last 4 years I’ve participated in the literary frenzy that is NaNoWriMo. However, I prefer not to crack my head against the wall doing NaNoWriMo this year. Well I am doing it but I’m also doing NaNoBloMo, where bloggers everywhere make a personal promise to post everyday. That way if I don’t reach my 50K mark for NaNoWriMo I still manage the more attainable goal of posting everyday, and getting back into the swing of things.
This Sept, I had my baby boy Alexander Tesla:
Aren’t I a cutie!
I hope that by telling you I have an infant in the house (along with a 6 year old, a cat, and a husband) my time is somewhat take up. I also manage my jewelry shop StellarG Jewelry.
So with this post, I kick of November. ALL 30 days of it, and I hope that in this month of frenzy I meet all my goals. My family as health and happiness, and write write write.
Don’t forget to like StellarG jewelry and http://www.facebook.com/stellargravity for new jewelry and store items.
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Upcoming post:
Great Holiday DIY ideas
Scrabble Coaster tutorial
ClothDiapering: A month in, Perils and Triumphs.
Meeting Sandy
Making Nann
Mother of Luck, Thomas 6th Bday cake
So in 2009 I promised I’d post up the pernil recipe to go with my tostones al ajillo. Life happens and things go crazy but mainly the reason why I never posted it, is I always have my husband make the pernil. Nothing I make could compare to the meat mana that just melts in your mouth if you ever tasted my husband’s pernil. So here he is, in his first guest post with his yummy pernil recipe:
So… you want to make a pernil? Don’t panic. There are many ways to make a pernil and someone is always going to tell you that you’re doing it wrong. This is my pernil. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Change it up according to taste and availability of ingredients.
First thing you want to do is mix your rub. How much rub you make depends on how big of a pernil you want to season. Normally I like to buy a nine to twelve pound Boston butt, so I measure with a tablespoon. But if you use the smaller but still useful pork shoulder, you can get away with a teaspoon.
In a whiskey tumbler, bring together:
In other words, everything in your spice rack. Don’t panic, you haven’t gotten to the hard part yet. Now you’re going to take that slab of meat and peel back the skin using your sharpest knife, leaving the part closest to the bone intact so the skin stays put.
Now it’s time to get sexy with your meat. Grab a handful of seasoning and give your meat a thorough massage, lathering every crevice with your fragrant seasoning. Your hands are going to smell like seasoning all day, be proud and own the smell. Be especially diligent in the area that will be covered by the skin. Only put a little seasoning on the actual skin, just enough to give it a little color.
Did you have the foresight to buy a size appropriate disposable aluminum tray and aluminum foil? Good. Put the pernil in the tray, cover loosely with foil, and put it in the fridge overnight. Serve yourself a drink to congratulate yourself on a job well done. So far.
Count back twelve hours from dinner time. Set an alarm. When the alarm goes off, put your meat in the oven, still covered in foil, and set it for 230 F. No need to preheat the oven, there will be plenty of time for that. Now set an alarm for three hours before show time. That’s when you remove the foil. Save the foil for later.
What’s that? You don’t have twelve hours to cook meat? Don’t panic. You can cook the pernil in eight hours if you set the oven to 250 F, or in six hours of you set the oven to 275 F. Don’t ask me how I got these numbers, they just seem to work. But the meat really does benefit from a slow cook process, so plan ahead and make the time.
At the end of cooking time, remove your pernil from the oven. You need to let it sit for a while so the juices don’t all run out when you cut into it. Put your pernil on the biggest cutting board you have, cover it loosely with that foil you saved, and leave it alone for at least twenty minutes. You’ve been drinking and socializing, and you’re probably not done cooking, so use this time to finish your meal. That’s okay, nobody expects the food to be done on time anyway.
Yum!
Cut your pernil into steak thick slices and serve. If you saved some of the juice from the disposable tray, you can make a bit of gravy from that, but the pernil is going to be juicy enough without gravy, so don’t worry about it. If you put the pernil in the broiler at a lowish, you can crisp the skin and make fresh pork rinds. But everybody should be too full from dinner to care about snacking later. Congratulations! You made pernil. Now go pass out on the couch and leave cleaning and giving away leftovers to the culinary impaired.
People gather around just for my husband’s meat.
I can only tell you about my experience with prepping diapers. I use cotton prefolds with fitted covers, and micro fibers for pocket diapers. My first instinct was just to toss them all in washer, run them twice in hot water, then dry them. I actually did a little more research. While I could have gotten away with that, the more you strip your diapers the more absorbent they become. Companies can’t wash their product before sending it to you, usually they are layered with something so its looks smooth and finished then ship out to in packaging so you know its new. Prepping will get rid of any of the stuff they added before packaging. Also natural fibers (like bamboo and cotton) have natural waxes that when stripped lets the fibers absorb more. I separated all my prefolds (cotton), tossed into scalding hot water and ran it twice through the machine, then put them in the dryer while to wait for the rest of my diapers. Then I tossed in all my microfibers (man made so no natural oils) with the diaper covers for one load. Tossed them all in the dryer for a low heat to get them dry halfway.
MicroFibers
Pulled out the covers, then ran the dryer normally for the inserts and prefolds. Now its recommended to dry out in the sun, because the sun is a natural stain remover, free, and would kill anything in a diaper (that could cause rashes, smell). Not exactly super sunny outside and since they haven’t been used yet its not that big of a deal. Hung out the covers to dry on my stairs railing and tada.
Out to dry!
Just need to put them back together (for convenience later) and put them away.
All folded and put away. Now to wait!
Now we’re officially ready to cloth diaper when Alex gets home.
The Percolation of Stellar...stuff 